Most livestock live on land that wouldn't be able to produce edible crops for humans.
This is because most livestock live in factory farms. Can't grow too many vegetables on concrete. And while it may be true that, in mountainous regions, you can raise cows but few crops, most American beef cows, even free-range ones, only get so much of their daily food intake from actually grazing. Usually, what happens is people grow feed-grain crops, harvest them with the normal machine methods, and then ship them off to the cattle farm.
And while some waste vegetable matter is actually fed to cows, really, you can't just feed cows on stuff that humans won't eat, they need the grains for protein. And even if cows are 400% more efficient at eating corn than humans are, there is still some waste due to the increased trophic level.
This is why, for example, people in most historical agrarian societies ate meat very, very rarely. Eating dairy or plants was just more efficient, and it was expensive to feed a cow or pig. You only see people eating highly meat-based diets when they're living in an area, like mountains or semi-arid regions, where really the only things that grow are grasses. And those cattle live very different lives than your average American beef cow.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-03-21 02:34 pm (UTC)This is because most livestock live in factory farms. Can't grow too many vegetables on concrete. And while it may be true that, in mountainous regions, you can raise cows but few crops, most American beef cows, even free-range ones, only get so much of their daily food intake from actually grazing. Usually, what happens is people grow feed-grain crops, harvest them with the normal machine methods, and then ship them off to the cattle farm.
And while some waste vegetable matter is actually fed to cows, really, you can't just feed cows on stuff that humans won't eat, they need the grains for protein. And even if cows are 400% more efficient at eating corn than humans are, there is still some waste due to the increased trophic level.
This is why, for example, people in most historical agrarian societies ate meat very, very rarely. Eating dairy or plants was just more efficient, and it was expensive to feed a cow or pig. You only see people eating highly meat-based diets when they're living in an area, like mountains or semi-arid regions, where really the only things that grow are grasses. And those cattle live very different lives than your average American beef cow.